Rainbows and Unicorns

One morning on the way to the office I was on the phone with a friend. She asked, are you doing okay? Side note: earlier this week, we had gone to breakfast and I told her, “I think my give a damn’s busted.” If you are unfamiliar with the expression, you can reference the Jo Dee Messina 2005 release of a song by the same name: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o40fwZgSFPI . Back to the story…. This morning I guess the question, “are you doing okay,” hit me a different way. I took a deep breath and I think I finally exhaled, the first time since March of 2020. You see, as HR professionals we put on our game face, kept the spreadsheets, waded through the CDC website, read all the OSHA compliance BS, and just smiled and nodded when asked, “are you doing okay?” Why did we do that? Well….. Like a flight attended in a thunderstorm over Dallas in early spring – no matter how bad the turbulence gets or how many passengers think the plane is going down, your job is to smile and nod and let them k

I was in a leadership meeting a few days ago and was listening as one of the participants explained how he was a leader and how he leads others. I listened carefully. At the end of his long list of leadership abilities I said, “are they following?” He, and others, were a bit taken back by my question. It’s a fair question to ask any leader. You can lead all day long, but in the end is their anyone behind you? Leadership, leadership, leadership. It seems all I hear about is leadership, but that’s only half of the equation. Followership is the other equally important half of the equation. We all are followers, even if you are a leader you are a follower. If you don’t think you are, think again. If you can’t accept that you may have challenges in your leadership journey. In the book Leadership is Half the Story , Marc and Samantha Hurwitz compare leadership to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the movie Swing Time made in 1936. Why compare it to these two tap dancing actors? If you wat

It was dark and anticipation was in the air, you could smell the salt off the sea. In the distance, lights and people moving about like little ants scurrying back to their queen. And then, the wait is over….9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, "we have go for main engine start, we have liftoff of America's first Space Shuttle and the Shuttle has cleared the tower." The g-forces hold the occupants firmly against their seats as the shuttle climbs towards the heavens with the brilliant light from the rocket boosters propelling her at 26,246 feet per second. Seconds after lift-off, the command is given from Houston, “Columbia Houston, you're go at throttle up.” The astronauts on board, were John Young and Robert Crippen. Young was the head of the astronaut office and Crippen was a rookie who was hired in 1978, this was his first time in space. NASA was a bit gun shy to put a full crew on the shuttle considering they weren’t quite sure what was going to happen. John Young was a vete

It's new year's eve and I'm pretty grateful for 2020, wierd, I know...but I'll let you know why here in a minute. So, I found a half written blog post about how I discovered that I like to write....interesting. It is true, as long I as I get to write about things I care about and experiences that will help others. In 2020, I discovered many things: I'm damn good at writing a Google review and I should be getting some free meals in 2021...or else. I love the beach and sand isn't that bad after all. Quit worrying so much, the cosmetics to correct the wrinkles cost too damn much. Embrace the suck. Brene Brown is my hero for 2020, her books have made me a better person with the help of a whole host of other people in my life, some new additions and some who have been around for years. This morning I was reading The New York Times, I feel super adult to say that, and an article about lessons we learned from the pandemic caught my attention. I've included the link